Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
ACI is posting today two pieces about the recently concluded meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. The first, “ACC-14: Did the Members Know What They Were Voting On?” shows that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that a majority of the Council members intended any result other than to approve the Ridley Cambridge text of [...]
May 28 2009 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
A transcript of the proceedings at ACC-14 on May 8, 2009, when the Council voted in conflicting ways on key votes, raises the important question of how many of its members, including officers and proponents of key amendments, understood what they were actually voting on when they narrowly passed an amendment intended to open Section [...]
May 28 2009 | Articles
Written by: Mike Watson & Mark McCall
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
Much of the criticism of the Anglican Consultative Council’s deliberations concerning the Anglican Communion Covenant has centered on control of the resolutions committee by those opposed to a covenant with real accountability, confusing and inadequately explained procedures during the debate and intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury said to have had the effect of diminishing chances for adoption of the intact Ridley Cambridge draft. As forceful as those criticisms may be, there is still more to the story. The bottom line is that it appears the deliberative process did not produce the resolution claimed to have emerged, because the critical clauses intended to introduce a delay of several months for further consideration of Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge draft were never approved by the Council.
In a discussion at the dais immediately following adjournment of the May 8, 2009 session at which the debate took place, this was apparently pointed out to the Chair, Bishop John Paterson of Auckland, New Zealand. It apparently did not take Bishop Paterson long to realize his mistake, because he quickly reactivated his microphone and announced to the large crowd still in the room that there would need to be a vote on the two clauses in question when the plenary session reconvened at 5 p.m. He went on to apologize for misleading the council members about the status of the proceedings. By the time, however, the plenary reconvened, the position had changed, apparently as a result of discussions involving a legal advisor.
May 28 2009 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
A number of persons from around the Communion have asked me for my perspective on the recent ACC meeting’s treatment of the proposed Anglican Covenant. There are at least two reasons, I suppose, why my opinion might be solicited. First, I have been a member of the Covenant Design Group that, over the past two and half years has worked at the drafting of this document. Obviously, I have a particular stake in what happens to the work we have spent over 30 full days in prayer, study, and labor producing. But second, I have long argued that doctrinally traditional Anglicans like myself should both be engaged in the Covenant’s promise and articulation but also willing to maintain that engagement from a posture of continued communion within and among our divided member churches. There are many who now wonder whether the outcome to the ACC meeting undercuts that argument.
May 13 2009 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
Friday’s session of the Anglican Consultative Council is an embarrassment to Anglicans everywhere, and a sad display of procedural confusion. Members were given complex resolutions right before the vote without sufficient time to study them and understand their consequences. Resolutions that had been distributed earlier were replaced by resolutions drafted by a committee largely composed of members from provinces known to be opposed to the Ridley Cambridge Draft. Before a vote could even be taken on these resolutions, however, Archbishop Aspinall introduced a third resolution that not even the chairman of the resolutions committee had seen. The proponents of these resolutions, the intent of which was to remove Section IV and so significantly alter the Ridley Cambridge Draft, could not describe them to the members in a coherent way even though their first language was English, unlike many of those voting. All three resolutions were being debated at the same time. In consultation with various members present, there is agreement that this was improper.
The first motion to remove Section 4 for review and so alter the Covenant was defeated overwhelmingly by the members of the ACC. But the proponents of delay and alteration attempted yet again to insert the main provisions of the resolution just defeated into the resolution then under consideration. This attempt was rightly ruled out of order by the chair, Bishop Paterson of New Zealand, himself sympathetic to the leadership of TEC. For reasons that are unclear, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had himself called for a vote on Resolution A, personally challenged this ruling of the chair and it was reversed. (It has been suggested that delegates voted against Resolution A because they had an interest in other resolutions. But that should never have been the condition under which voting was taking place, and it requires that 15 of the votes were cast because of this in order actually to approve Resolution A – a matter we cannot ever know because it is pure conjecture. This puts a cloud over the entire logic of voting as such and would clearly suggest the need for a re-vote, not a moving ahead with new resolutions).
May 10 2009 | Articles
Written by: Communion Partners
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
A group of Bishops of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have issued a statement on the polity of the Episcopal Church with which we as Rectors of churches in the Episcopal Church are in full agreement. Our understanding of the seat of authority in the Episcopal Church, as elaborated by the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, is consistent with that elaborated in the Bishops’ statement. We also find the arguments supporting the statement to be compelling and worthy of intentional study by the sundry dioceses, bishops, deputies, clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church.
The authority of the Episcopal Church resides at the diocesan level. This is witnessed to by the structure of the church as “that of a voluntary association of equal dioceses.” Also, the Constitution and Canons of the Church make no provision for either a central hierarchy or a Presiding Bishop with metropolitan authority. Furthermore, our General Convention representation is as dioceses and not as communicants, with only an administrative role for the convention leadership, the voting members of the leadership themselves drawn from the diocesan deputations. In addition, the ordinal does not contain any language acknowledging or committing to submit to any metropolitan or central hierarchal authority.
May 05 2009 | Articles